Scheme of work

Mastery Science will publish a scheme of work, based on the teaching syllabus, for the teaching element in year 10 and year 11, to prepares students for projects.

The scheme uses case studies developed by Mastery Science, where students follow how real scientists or engineers have carried out an enquiry, followed by action tasks to apply what they learn.

Here is an outline of the year 10 scheme. It begins at the start of the year, and lasts approximately 9 weeks - 1/3 of the curriculum time available until completion of students’ projects. The year 11 scheme will revisit the same practices and skills at a more advanced level.

Week 1-3: Stages of the Investigation process

• Case A covers the Ask and Search stages - how scientists frame the question and use relevant models to hypothesise and make predictions
• Case B covers the Experiment stage - how scientists plan and collect data
• Case C covers the Interpret stage - how scientists analyse data and draw conclusions

Week 4-6 Stages of the Design process

• Case A covers the Ask and Search stages - how engineers define the problem, set criteria and constraints, and generate solutions
• Case B covers the Build stage - how engineers create a prototype for testing the design
• Case C covers the Improve stage - how engineers optimise their design through iteration

Week 7-9 Stages of the Research process

• Case A covers the Ask and Search stages - how people frame a socio-scientific issue and find and evaluate sources for reliability
• Case B covers the Interpret stage - how people make sense of information and synthesise multiple sources into themes
• Case C covers the Decide stage - how people look at different perspectives to come to informed judgement and build an argument